Love and War
by tigerlilyjacobs
Summary: AU Imagine how the sparks would fly if Ana and Christian were truly enemies! In this steaming fanfic, you'll be whisked away to the age of knights-where chivalry & brutality vied for predominance. Ana's land is under attack by Christian, but he'd rather conquer the woman than the barony. Christian has Ana in his power-what will happen next? (So far T, will become M.)
1. Anastasia

**This is my first public fanfic ever, though I've done some fan RP. In fact, I made an account here for the first time just to upload this, though I'm a long time lurker, ever since I got into X-Files fic in the 90s. If people like it, I'll upload more, so if I get at least 20 follows or favorites, I'll put up the second chapter. If everyone hates it, I don't want to put more up! Please read and review, and if you like it, follow or favorite!**

**This is going to be very, very hot, but for the first few chapters, it's just T.**

England, 1271

Drumbeats shivered through the forest, reverberating in Anastasia's chest and stealing the breath from her lungs. Her palfrey snorted, tossing its head. She steadied it with a murmur. Down the slope of the hill and across the field, the occasional scarlet surcoat flashed behind the dark line of trees. Her marshal and steward shifted on either side of her; Anastasia knew they shared her fears. How many men had the Earl of Greyholm sent against her barony?

Soon, the snapping of twigs and the jiggle of mail joined the steady thud-thud-thud of the drums, and Anastasia thought she could make out a helmeted head here, a horse's hindquarters there. She straightened, stilling the flutter in her belly.

"Under no circumstances are you to let the knights charge until the archers have got off the first flight," she ordered the marshal tautly.

She heard the grimace in his voice. "They do not like it. There is no honor in allowing bowmen to fire upon knights while they wait as if afraid to meet the charge." Sir Amaury spoke quietly, but Anastasia felt the attention of the closest men sharpen at his words, and coldness brushed her heart.

Not taking her eyes from the forest's edge, she kept her face neutral and softened her voice for her reply. "Come, now. Do our men want their lands stolen from them? These knights, as you call them, have broken the laws of courtesy and honor both, and they do not deserve to face ours as equals. Save your nobility for worthier opponents, good marshal."

"Yes, my lady," Sir Amaury murmured, subsiding. Around her, the tension subtly lessened.

Anastasia squeezed her hands into fists to hide their trembling. Another crisis averted, as real a danger as any approaching army. She was aware of the steward's eyes upon her-the Earl of Rothbourne's hound keeping close watch on that nobleman's ward. Not that she need fear her earl any longer with the main thrust of Greyholm's invasion to distract him. But even that was a mixed blessing; with the removal of the threat of his authority, she also lost his scant self-interested protection. And she had to face Greyholm's younger son alone.

She tipped back her head, clearing her mind of such extraneous thoughts. I must focus. Focus every second or I might not have another to enjoy.

The figures moving behind the screen of trees grew clearer, the drumbeats louder. Anastasia tensed, and suddenly, the approaching army was no longer within the woods but in front of it, a long line of steel and horseflesh, lances and banner-staves bristling as if the army carried the dark heart of the forest with it in a wall of steel-tipped wood.

In the center of the line, just ahead of the crowd of horse sergeants and infantry, rode a man whose surcoat declared him to be Christian fitz Grey himself. Anastasia's palfrey shifted nervously under her, responding to the welter of emotions that hummed through her veins. It is not enough for the Earl of Greyholm to kill my father and brother; now he must send his son to finish the humiliation of my family. The thought was laced with the bitterness that had fermented in her belly for five years, and she glared at their commander as he approached in the midst of his army, the final insult to the Steeles. Though Anastasia had not chosen this war, it was an insult she fully intended to answer. The alternative was unthinkable.

Even with his face hidden by a gilded helm, Anastasia read arrogance in every line of fitz Grey's body. He was sure of this battle, far surer than he should be. Regardless of her carefully cultivated reputation, if he expected to face down a sheltered solar maiden, he had made at least one mistake he would not soon forget.

Fitz Grey raised his arm, and the drums shuddered, shuddered, stopped. The army halted and stood motionless, staring up the hill at Anastasia's troops. In the silence, she could hear the men breathing around her, the snort of a horse, and high above their heads, the mocking cry of a single crow.

There were too many of them. Even though Anastasia had hired extra soldiers to defend against those who would take advantage of an unwed baroness, her forces were evenly matched at best. Where had Greyholm found so many men?

It would be a close fight, far too close for one who would rather not fight at all.

Fitz Grey lowered his arm abruptly, and a blast of horns swallowed the first of the battle cries as the knights spurred their horses forward, their squires and sergeant-at-arms behind them.

"Steady," Sir Amaury called as her own knights began to shift restlessly. The galloping enemy crossed the first flat stretch in moments, then began to slow as their mounts labored up the slope. "Archers, fire when your aim is true."

In front of Anastasia's horsemen, the bowmen drew the arrows that were already nocked to their bowstrings. A breath later, the first shaft arced into the air, flying toward the knights. That one clattered harmlessly off a great helm, but it was joined by another and another, and in a few scant seconds, five riders were toppled from their mounts and three more horses were down.

Anastasia watched the approaching wave of steel, doubting again the decisions that she had made over the past four years-the decisions that had won her a loyal, foolish force of knights who chafed even to allow archers to be first in the field. She had the high ground, and her knights could break every charge as Greyholm's men exhausted themselves against the wall of lances. But the chivalry that she had nurtured so carefully in her knights, the aura she had surrounded herself with, made them both willing to die in the cause of honor and unwilling to live with lesser glory. So she chose the foolish way, the only way, now, and hoped it would not prove her undoing.

She looked at Sir Amaury. She remembered when only a few silver hairs gilded his beard, when he used to take her upon his knee on a winter's night to tell her stories of her grandfather's escapades in the Holy Land. Somehow, she had dazzled even his rheumy eyes, but she hoped not so thoroughly he had forgotten the tactician he had once been. She knew much of men but very little of war.

"Archers, fall back! Horse, charge!" Sir Amaury's voice rang above the trumpets.

The bowmen scrambled out of the way and her knights surged forward, plunging down the slope. The leading figures couched their lances under their arms, holding the tips steady and raising up in their saddles an instant before impact. Flashes of the last tourney Anastasia had seen—the last tourney she ever wanted to see—rose in her mind, and she tensed her body against the shudder that tried to seize her.

The leading pair of knights met, then another and another until the main masses of the opposing forces collided with a deafening crash. Those whose lances found no enemy burst into the ranks of the squires and sergeants and drew their swords. She caught glimpses of familiar blazons on shields and surcoats: her own Sir William, surrounded by his sons; loyal Sir Geoffrey and his band of mercenaries; enemies she had seen before, with whom she had danced at the Earl of Rothbourne's court, or names and devices she knew only from the rolls.

This was no usual knightly battle, a ritual exchange of blows in hopes of wounding and capturing the enemy for ransom. Her knights were fighting for their livelihood, their land, and-perhaps even more-for their lady's honor, and Anastasia forced herself not to press a hand against her roiling stomach as scream after scream pierced the air.

She could not watch—she had to watch—as her barony's fate was decided by the edge of the sword and the blood of her men. Sir Amaury ordered the infantry to charge, and the foot soldiers drew their swords and dashed down the hill toward the melee, their bellows soon lost in the sharper cries.

Sir Lionel, Sir William again. Where was Sir Geoffrey? It was impossible to tell who was winning in the raging pandemonium below. The Greyholm infantry had joined the fray, adding to the confusion.

Through it all, only one figure was clear, rising above the others, a golden helm shining above a scarlet surcoat. Fitz Grey.

Anastasia could feel the threat of his presence even across the field, even surrounded by her marshal, the steward, and four of the steward's men. Four men who should have been on the battlefield and helping their comrades, not guarding a woman, she thought, chafing at her own frailty.

Fitz Grey was not hiding at the edge of the field, shielded by the strongest of his men and sitting on a horse that quivered with his own fear. No, he was in the thick of the battle, and from yet a hundred yards away, Anastasia thought she could hear his voice, calling to his men in French, rallying them around his banner.

If only I had been born a man, I would be down there with my knights, not hanging back while they bled and died for me. Anastasia watched the clashing figures below with a mixture of longing and horror. Surely even fighting was better than this powerless, interminable waiting. Surely…

The battle began to drift across the field, up the slope towards her position. Her breath sped up. Were her troops losing ground, or was it just an aimless movement as the thick of the battle shifted from one quarter to another?

"My lady, we ought to move." Her steward's voice cut through her thoughts, filled with uncharacteristic nervousness. Sparing a glance for him, Anastasia took in his pale, tight face.

"Sir Giles, my knights must see their lady," she replied mildly. The edge of the fray was still fifty yards away, and with such a lead, she could easily outdistance any knight who tried to peel away from the battle to capture her, even if he survived the barrage of arrows from the archers who still surrounded her, holding their arrows nocked to their strings as they watched for stray enemies to be picked off. "Can not you and your knights defend one small woman? Or are you frightened?" She spoke loudly enough that a few of the archers heard her and smothered smiles and snickers. Sir Giles was apt to forget that they were her men, not her earl's, and he had won himself few friends in the barony.

The steward stiffened. "Against knights, yes, my lady. But against arrows—why, we can scarcely hope to throw ourselves in their paths before you are struck."

Anastasia scanned the battlefield. "I see none of the enemy's archers within an arrow's flight of us. You are suffering from an excess of caution, Sir Giles."

The steward made an impatient noise and nudged his mount against hers, and he reached out and closed his hand around her wrist before she could react. Even with the mail hauberk and padded gambeson beneath, the grip was tight enough to be almost painful. Irritated, she tried to jerk free, but his hold did not slip. Alarm seized her, and she looked up into his face to meet a grimly determined expression.

"I tire of these games. You must come with me, my lady."

"I must do no such thing," she hissed back, the gloved fingers of her free hand scrabbling futilely for leverage to pry his loose.

Sir Giles' expression darkened. "Look to your marshal, then, lady."

Anastasia turned. Sir Amaury sat with unnatural straightness upon his horse, one of Sir Giles' knights holding his elbow. The knight shifted, and Anastasia caught a glint of a dagger blade, pressed between the joints in his armor.

"Perfidy," Anastasia whispered, a wave of shock washing over her to swallow her nascent disbelief.

"No, my lady. Common sense. You shall come quietly. We needn't alarm the archers. They might do something foolish, and we don't want anyone to be needlessly hurt."

He had asked no question, but Anastasia nodded numbly anyway. Sir Giles grabbed her fallen reins with his free hand, adding them to his own, and turned her horse with his, heading toward the woods that circled the field on three sides, his knights and the captive marshal behind. Several of the archers glanced up from the battle as they passed, but the mounted group received no more attention than a few sketched salutes and a puzzled glance or two.

What was he about? she thought dazedly. Did he mean to haul her off himself and force her to wed him now that his lord was in no position to punish such impudence? Did he mean to hand her over to someone else? To fitz Grey?

Sweet St. Agnes, no, Anastasia begged silently even as brutal certainty shoved its way into her stunned mind. The images that were never deeply buried flashed before her again—her father and Greyholm meeting in the midst of the tourney field, the lance breaking against her father's helm, Greyholm tightening his grip—tightening it instead of dropping his lance before it could do harm. The broken lance splintering, and her father tumbling from his horse to lie still on the sward, and the blood, the blood that she could see even in the stands, pouring like an accusation from the black eye slit…

And Sir Giles meant to give her over to Greyholm's son.

Fury and terror warred within her, and Anastasia's muscles knotted with the urge to throw herself from the saddle and run-run and never look back. But that would do no more than get Sir Amaury killed; at such a close range, even the assistance of the archers would be all but useless, and only a few strides of his horse would bring Sir Giles to her side again. Yet it took every ounce of her strength to keep still, to keep her face a mask of serenity as the bowmen parted for the calmly walking horses. To know where she was being taken and yet do nothing.

As they passed the last line of archers, one of them glanced up, and his gaze rested briefly on Sir Giles' hand, still gripping her wrist, before flickering wide-eyed to her face. Anastasia's throat tightened with the desire to call for his aid, but all she did was give a miniscule, discouraging shake of her head. His expression grew closed abruptly, and a moment later, Sir Giles had pulled her mount among the trees, and the archers were lost from view.

"We will proceed slowly, my lady," he said. "You might find it too easy to arrange an accident if we traveled with more speed, and I do not want you injured." His face took on an expression of fierce determination, and Anastasia had the sudden realization that he meant exactly what he said, as ludicrous as it seemed.

"If you truly do not wish me injured, then you should take me back now," she replied stiffly.

Sir Giles shot her a pained look. "I am acting only in your best interests. I am sure that, one day, you will come to thank me."

"The day St. Peter guards the gates of hell!" Anastasia heard the note of hysteria in her own voice, and she snapped her mouth closed.

They traveled in silence, Sir Giles turning their party to skirt the edge of the field. The noise of the battle was loud even among the trees, and through the branches, Anastasia could make out the occasional flashing sword and waving banner. It seemed incredible to her that her knights on the field could fail to notice that they were gone—that their commander and lady had both disappeared, and they fought on, oblivious, for what had already been lost.

Anastasia choked on a hiccoughing laugh, and on its heels, a swell of panic rose within her, freezing her mind, gripping her stomach, making her fingers clench on the pommel in front of her as her horse moved with stiff unease beneath her. She fought the numbing fear, trying to think, trying to find some escape.

The soft swish of an arrow jerked her back to herself. She whipped her head toward the sound just in time to see Sir Giles topple from his horse, eyes wide and fingers curled around the shaft that protruded from his throat. Anastasia gagged as blood splashed against her glove, and her horse shied from the body that dropped abruptly before its nose.

There was a shout, then another, and more arrows sprouted in their midst, one flying so close by her ear that one of the fletchings burned her. The sting of her cheek jolted her mind into action, and Anastasia kicked her palfrey into a stumbling canter even as she scrabbled for the reins.

She pleaded silently, frantically to every saint she knew, certain that at any moment she would feel the blunt pain of an arrow piercing her mail. She ducked her head against the leaves and branches, her shaking hands tracing the reins from where they met the bridle as every passing twig threatened to rip them from her grip again. Abruptly, she was yanked back against the cantle. My bow- But before she could do more than realize what had happened, the branch that had caught her released with a snap, and she found herself still in the saddle with the reins in her hands.

An instant later, her palfrey burst out of the undergrowth and onto the battlefield. Anastasia caught her breath; she had lost her sense of direction in the flight. A scant twenty-five yards away, men in mail flailed at each other with their great swords. Above her, on the crest of the hill, her line of archers seemed to beckon, promising safety. She bore hard towards them, her heart hammering in her chest.

As she thundered past a knot of knights, a golden helm turned to follow her progress from the midst of them. Fitz Grey. Anyone but fitz Grey- She bit off a curse, urging her mount to greater speed. But even above the clang of swords and shouts of men, she could hear the rhythm of approaching hooves; his charger was no match for her lady's palfrey.

Gritting her teeth, she wheeled her horse back into the woods, hunching over the pommel as she plunged past the tree line. She gave her mount its head and let it choose its own path, concentrating on keeping her seat as they wove between the trees.

Her horse splashed down into a stream, her spine jarring with the impact. It sped up along its shallow, rocky bed, and she risked a glance back. Though Fitz Grey was out of sight, a distant splash told her he still followed. She strained her eyes, but she could catch no glimpse of movement through the underbrush.

A crack against her skull jerked her back against the saddle. She tried to turn and grab for the pommel, but her feet had already ripped free of the stirrups and she was airborne before she could do more than brush it with her fingertips.

For half a breath, she was suspended above the stream, then she crashed against the rocks beneath the ankle-deep water, her jaw slamming into her skull with a force that made her vision blur. She shoved herself to her knees, gasping against the pain in her ribs, her hunting bow bumping against her back.

Only a few lengths beyond the branch she had struck, her horse stood quivering and looking back over its lathered shoulder at her. But even as she scrambled towards it, it snorted and surged out of the streambed with a single great leap. It plunged between the trees, and an instant later, it was gone.

The splash of the approaching horse grew louder. No. Holy Virgin and all the saints, please, no. Anastasia snatched up her scattered arrows and forced herself to her feet. She took an unsteady step to the bank and caught the trunk of a sapling with her free hand, her feet scrambling at the slick mud as she hauled herself up and under a bush in the same desperate movement. She had scarcely hidden when fitz Grey rounded the bend in the streambed.

He pulled his horse to a halt, and Anastasia caught her breath. Even in pursuit, he carried himself with the same calm haughtiness as he had before the battle, and she felt his cold gaze pass over her as that golden helm swung from side to side, searching. The stream stretched in a long, straight line before him, and he must have realized that there was no way that she could have gotten so far ahead. The marks of her flight were only too clear if he stopped to read them…

Somewhere behind her, Anastasia's palfrey crashed through the underbrush in its fright. Fitz Grey tipped his head for a moment, then turned his horse toward the sound and leaned forward as it hauled itself up the bank.

All Anastasia could see were hooves and hocks, inches from her nose. If he but looked down-

But he passed by without so much as a pause, and Anastasia let out her breath as the horse's hindquarters disappeared between the trees, taking its master with it.

When she was sure it was gone, Anastasia wriggled out from under the bush. Her arms were weak from relief, but she forced herself to return her arrows to her quiver and string her bow-the bowstring, safe in her belt pouch, was still dry, and the bow itself undamaged by some miracle-before starting through the forest at a slow jog, her hauberk dragging at her shoulders and jingling under her gunna.

Sir Amaury—she spared a thought of concern for her marshal, then pushed it aside as she ducked under a low tree branch—Sir Amaury had protested that she would never have to draw a bow. But Anastasia hadn't been willing to gamble, and now she was glad for its comforting weight in her hand.

She headed west, paralleling the stream as she steered towards her demesne and AstlingsmeadeCastle. I am not abandoning you, she mentally sent to her men still in the field, though her own guilty conscience told her otherwise. But without a guard of knights she would be a fool to return to the battle. She would greet her men at the castle-as victors, if the Lord willed it, or to prepare for a siege if they had only held out long enough to cover their own retreat. No. They would win. They had to win.

It was a good ten miles to the castle; unless she dared the roads, night would fall long before she reached the edge of the woods. Fixing her mind on the image of greeting her knights at the gatehouse bathed in the glory of victory, she settled her quiver more comfortably on her back and pressed on.

The sounds of fighting returned as the stream veered close to the battlefield, and she moved more cautiously, wary of scouts or ambushers in the underbrush. Her heart sped up, and her palms grew slick on the leather-wrapped grip of the bow. But she heard nothing over the clash of conflict except the soft crunch of dry leaves under her own boots, and she saw nothing in the trees except the occasional flit of a silent bird from branch to branch.

The noise of the battle grew more muffled as she began to move away. She started to relax, the muscles loosening across her shoulders, her breath coming more freely. A stitch had begun to tug at her side, and she steeled herself in preparation for picking up her pace again.

But just as she took her first jogging step, an arm snaked around her throat, jerking her back against a hard body as a hand clamped around her mouth.


	2. Christian

**Second chapter! Please leave reviews if you like it. I still recommend following it if you want to not lose track of it once it goes to M. :) Also, there will be an MA/NC-17 version on my website that I just put up, which is my name without the "tiger". This one will be edited so it doesn't get banned.**

The palfrey had stopped. Christian caught flashes of its long green barding and chestnut coat through the bushes. A suspicion that the baroness was no longer riding it had been forming in the back of his mind, and it now solidified into half-certainty as the horse wandered aimlessly away.

Pressing his lips in a hard line, he nudged his mount quickly through the undergrowth. The palfrey's head came up, and it skipped to the side and sidled deeper into the forest, but Christian did not pursue. The glimpse of the empty saddle, stirrups dangling, banished the last of his hopes. The young baroness had eluded him.

Muttering a curse, Christian turned his charger back towards the field. He had a battle to win before he could spare the men to comb the forest, but he was determined find her even if it took all night. He had worked too hard to arrange her capture to let her escape so easily.

Christian had thought his plan perfect, as bloodless as any war strategy could be. He had been cultivating that thickheaded steward since his father first told Christian of his intentions against their neighbor the Earl of Rothbourne, and he was certain that the man was his. But the knights of Astlingsmeade had fought like the very devil had possessed them so that the field was blood-soaked even before Sir Giles made his move, and then somehow the bumbler had managed to lose the girl entirely. How could Christian have miscalculated so badly?

As he ducked yet another low-hanging branch, Christian fatalistically marked loosing Anastasia le Steele as just another indication that the entire campaign was ill conceived. Some of the disbelief he had felt when his father first revealed his intentions returned. If Christian had not been bound to his father by the ties of fealty and kinship both, he would have walked out on the Earl of Greyholm right then and never looked back. His father concealed ambition in rhetoric about the logical path, the noble path, but for once, Christian suspected that even the man might not even believe his own words. The entire scheme reeked of self-aggrandizement.

When Christian had confronted his father, though, the older man only spoke with hurt in his eyes of the harshness of the world and the need for the King to have faithful followers. Still, it was not lost on Christian that his father had waited to get blessing from the doddering monarch until the canny crown prince was far from England.

The girl can certainly ride, though, Christian thought, his mind abruptly returning to his fruitless chase through the woods. He hadn't gotten a clear look at the green-clad baroness before turning in pursuit, but he found that his memory wanted to attribute her with the proportions of an Amazon to go along with that skill and strength, confounding the vague image of conventional virtues that he had unconsciously created based upon the dozen ballads circulating in her praise. The figure wavered in his mind's eye as he struggled to balance such disparate traits.

Perhaps his plan to capture her had failed because he had not taken the baroness herself into account, he thought as the image dissolved. He shook his head at the irony of that possibility, then again to clear it as he emerged onto the battlefield once again.

A single glance was enough to take in the flow of the battle, and with a grim smile, he drew his sword and plunged toward his standard where it dipped and waved in the midst of the tightest knot of fighters. His momentum carried him past the first line of soldiers, and then he hacked a path through, meeting steel here, flesh there, as he strove to reach his marshal's side.

He had progressed only a few strides when his two squires joined him, and with one on each flank, they pressed past the enemy and into the calm of the inner circle of his men where his marshal was resting.

"The trap was well sprung, my lord," his marshal reported, a grin splitting his face. "I relayed the order when you left, and the enemy was caught completely unawares."

Christian nodded shortly. Knots of fighters still struggled on the battlefield, but it took no trained eye to see that the tide moved relentlessly in his favor.

Sir Stephen's glee dimmed somewhat, and he cast his lord a keen look. "The baroness?"

"Escaped." The word tasted bitter on his tongue. "I will send out patrols as soon as we mop up the field."

Sir Stephen wiped the back of his hand across his dirt-smudged face and settled his great helm on his head. "Then let us make haste." He spurred his horse back into the thick of the battle, and chuckling at his eagerness, Christian followed.


	3. Pursuit Continues

**Next chapter! A bit longer. Please review (especially if you catch a typo-I'm bad about those!) and follow. :)**

**The alter-Jose is here, too, now. :)**

Anastasia bit the hand that pressed against her mouth and slammed her head backwards against her captor's chest. The man gave a smothered yelp, but his arm only tightened around her neck.

"Lady, do you want to get us all killed?" he hissed into her ear. "We are friends, my lady—do not scream."

Anastasia stilled and nodded, pretending to surrender but keeping her muscles tensed for flight. The arms around her eased, but only enough to grip her shoulders and turn her. Anastasia recognized the man at once—one of Sir Geoffrey's soldiers, the archer who had stared when Sir Giles was leading her away.

"Joseph, my lady. I humbly beg your pardon." He flashed a grin that looked less sincere than his words. "I was afraid that you'd make a noise in your surprise, and the woods are crawling with Greyholm's spies." His expression turned sober, and he turned to lead her into a thicket. "We didn't think that you would try to run. We only hoped to kill that traitor—" He spat.

"You ambushed us?" If Anastasia taken a moment to think, she would have assumed that fitz Grey ordered the attack.

"Killed the lot of them," he confirmed, standing aside and holding back a branch.

Anastasia passed him and stopped when she found herself a foot away from a small knot of men, resting on the ground. There were three other archers, one of whom she recognized from the permanent castle garrison. Sir Amaury was with them, his face gray-tinged but with no visible sign of injury. One bowman was not so lucky; his arm was bandaged with a dirty strip of linen, and sweat stood out in beads against his upper lip.

"Can we stay here?" she asked the marshal softly, casting a look at the wall of bushes that hid them from the surrounding forest.

"My lady, the men tell me that it would not be safe."

"The woods are crawling with spies," Joseph put in.

"Then we shall return to the field. With a such loyal guard around me, I need not fear another betrayal," she said.

The other archers straightened visibly at her compliment, but Joseph shook his head. "Beg your pardon, my lady, but fitz Grey was hiding more than spies in the woods. A company of knights flanked your men. There was no one to warn them of the attack or rally them after, and now it is only a matter of time before they are defeated."

"And without a horse, I would be walking into the enemy's arms." The news came like a blow to her heart. Her hopes had been riding on her knights' surging chargers, everything she had struggled for since her brother's death so close on the heels of her father's demise. And now…gone.

She looked at the small company and sighed. "Very well, then. It seems we have no choice. We shall go to Astlingsmead." If no one else had betrayed her and Astlingsmead still stood, if they reached the castle before Greyholm's army cut them off… All the things that could go wrong welled up in a welter of doubt to drown her, and she shunted them from her mind. They would know soon enough if her fears were valid.

"Wise choice, my lady," Sir Amaury said.

"Then let us make haste. Does anyone know aught of woodcraft?"

"I do, my lady," Joseph volunteered.

"Then lead on." She smiled grimly. "Whether you fight for silver or honor, if we arrive at Astlingsmead whole, you shall have plenty of both."

Joseph ducked his head in acknowledgement and slipped back through the bushes, and the others fell in behind. Anastasia found herself next to Sir Amaury, who wore a mask of pale determination and whose breath had a worrying catch.

"Good marshal," Anastasia asked softly when she was certain that all eyes and ears were focused elsewhere, "do you bear some injury that I do not see?"

Sir Amaury grunted. "My shoulder. I—I fell from my horse, and I think it broke." He dropped his eyes to the ground in front of him, flushing.

"The ambush took us both by surprise, Sir Amaury. You are not to blame. We should stop to bind your arm to your chest, to keep it from swinging so."

He shook his head abruptly. "No, my lady. It would not do to let the soldiers know I am wounded. They cannot be expected to share a knight's courage, and they might lose heart."

Anastasia cast a doubtful glance at their companions, but she kept her incredulity to herself. If being brave for the archers meant that Sir Amaury could find more strength in himself, she would not rob him of that comfort.

Anastasia's little band moved west as their guide led them on a winding path through the forest. They traveled faster than she could have managed alone, for Joseph was able to find the easiest route through the forest instead of trying to follow the stream as she would have been forced to do.

But the noise of their passage almost made her wish that she were on her own again. Every crunching leaf, every snapping branch cracked like thunder beneath a dozen feet. Anastasia held her breath, remembering Joseph's reports of spies, certain that each new sound would bring arrows spearing through the woods to slaughter her small company.

No birds sang; no small animals scurried for cover through the undergrowth. When they neared the battlefield again, shrill whinnies and distant screams split the air, but close around them, the forest was preternaturally tense and silent, as if the trees themselves were holding vigil for their erstwhile lords.

No. Not yet erstwhile. If she only could make it to Astlingsmead before Greyholm's army…

The sounds of battle became abruptly muted long before they had passed out of the range of hearing, and Anastasia clenched her hands as she realized it meant that her men must have surrendered. She could no longer even hope that her army would slow Greyholm's advance upon the castle.

She kept her eyes averted from Sir Amaury's, knowing that she would see her fears reflected there. They wouldn't make it in time, not on foot. She imagined Astlingsmead's keep rising above the curtain walls, her family's pennant replaced with Greyholm's silver leopards. She pushed her despair aside as she stepped over a fallen limb. Giving in to hopelessness would not save her—her or the five men with her. An elderly marshal and four archers. A fine guard for a baroness.

It impinged upon Anastasia's consciousness that the noise of their progress had acquired a strange echo, and abruptly, she realized that the new sounds were not theirs. She grabbed Sir Amaury's good arm and threw herself to the ground, pulling him down beside her as she hissed a warning to the others. Their heads turned, and they dropped to the leaves. She waved them close.

"Someone's coming. Listen," she whispered.

They all held their breaths for a moment, and Anastasia strained to place the direction of the sound. It might be one of her knights who had escaped capture, she told herself. But she did not dare to hope.

"This way, with your permission, lady, sir marshal," Joseph breathed.

Anastasia gave a minute nod, and the man rose to a crouch and scuttled behind an enormous fallen log. Anastasia led the others to join him. Joseph cocked his head toward the crest of a rise a mere dozen paces away. Anastasia nodded again.

"Lie flat," she whispered.

Her belly pressed against the cold ground, eyes inches from the rotting trunk, Anastasia willed herself into invisibility. The noise of the approaching men grew louder with every passing moment, and it seemed to Anastasia that time contracted and expanded all at once—that she had be lying there with a stick digging into her belly for an eternity, that the enemy was rushing upon them at an impossible rate.

Her heart pumped faster when the amorphous rustling resolved itself into separate footsteps. It was a bold sound, one that told of firm strides and unflinching advance. Not the furtive sound of one of her soldiers fleeing the battlefield. No, she thought grimly, it hadn't been a battlefield. Battlefield was too noble a word to encompass the infamy of Sir Giles' betrayal. Bile rose in her throat. Honorable combat could never have shattered her forces, not even against Greyholm. But then again, when had a Greyholm ever fought honorably?

The links of her mail dug into her ribs. It was made for horseback, not lying belly-down in the detritus of ten winters. She ignored it and the cold damp that soaked though her skirts to chill her legs.

Beside her, the injured archer's breathing was ragged, from pain or anger or some other more complex emotion, she could not tell. The white linen of his bandaged arm was already stained with crimson, and she wondered if he would last the night.

The sounds were closer now, more distinct. Over the crackling leaves, she could hear the jingle of mail and the bark of rough laughter. Her knuckles went white around her bow; the Greyholm soldiers did not even fear her men enough to take even the most basic precautions.

Ignoring Sir Amaury's warning hiss, Anastasia raised her head slowly above the edge of the log and peered through the screen of undergrowth. After three more breaths, the men came into sight, half-glimpsed shapes moving between the trees. Four foot soldiers, two abreast. Her hands ached to send arrows whistling into those arrogant backs. But sense reined in her anger, and she did not stir as the men neared their hiding place.

The foot soldiers were only half a dozen paces away when she heard the other noise. Another party approaching from behind, and much faster than the ambling soldiers. Anastasia's breath lurched in her lungs, and her heart skipped a beat before pounding even faster. Her small company was well hidden from the first party of soldiers by a rise, but the same slope left them painfully exposed from below. If they moved, they would be discovered by the foot soldiers. If they did not, they would be found by the newcomers.

This was it. Capture or death. Anastasia remembered her father, toppling to the ground with splinters of Greyholm's lance jutting from his helm—and her brother's body, brought in from the hunt with a quarrel that belonged to none of his huntsmen or companions piercing his heart.

Coldness washed over her, sending shivers of sick anticipation along her limbs. No. She would not be the next victim of a too-convenient accident. If she must die, she would die fighting. The chroniclers might deny a woman's right to vengeance in arms, but she would wrest it from them even with her last breath.

With a feeling of inevitability, she ducked back behind the shelter of the log and pivoted slowly on her belly until she faced the new threat. Pulled by the slope, her arrows slid from the quiver to rest against the back of her head. She reached back and planted half a dozen in the ground before her.

Her men watched silently, and she read in their eyes the realization that she was preparing for a last stand. Slowly, the archers moved to copy her motions. Sir Amaury gripped his sword; without a bow, he could do no more. Anastasia could do nothing to save him, no more than he could her. That knowledge knotted in her belly like a lead rope. Her men would be of no use to Greyholm, and Christian fitz Grey would order their deaths in his father's name as easily as he called for his horse.

She rose to a crouch—carefully, because the foot soldiers were still close and could turn and see her at any moment. The others just waited. Their longbows could only be used standing; the first volley would be hers alone. Anastasia acknowledged their gaze with a small nod and nocked an arrow. Her hunting bow, intended for deer, would now be tested against steel.


	4. Caught!

**And they meet! Violence and lust. Are you ready? :)**

How long had it been since he lost the baroness? An hour? Two?

Christian's jaw tightened, and he wished he'd had spare a moment to note the position of the sun when he returned to the battlefield. Time was strangely elastic in battle, and he could make no estimate of how long it had taken to finish off the last of the Astlingsmead men. Finish off-that phrase was more appropriate than it usually was, even to war. Few of the enemy knights had surrendered until they were disabled or disarmed even long after it had become clear that they could not win. He shook his head. What kind of woman was it who could inspire such madness in her men?

Christian's group passed another party of searchers, crashing through the forest. Not that his own patrol was much more stealthy, what with nearly a dozen mounted men in jingling mail and brilliant surcoats, their great helms bouncing against their saddles. Christian had wanted to track the baroness, but with the dozens of men who had already crisscrossed through the woods that morning, the effort had quickly proved futile, so now he was left with the patrols that he hoped were placed close enough together that no one could slip through.

A glimpse of movement brought his drifting attention sharply back into focus. He could hear another patrol nearly even with them, somewhere ahead and on the left, but what he had seen was closer, much closer. The patrols had already found half a dozen Astlingsmead soldiers, trying to escape capture on the field. Was this another, more crafty than his companions? Or could it be the baroness herself? Anticipation gripped him, but he forced it down.

He peered past one of his squires at the slope that angled up from their position. What was it? A dozen more yards, and he would be free of the screening trees—

Christian straightened, and that movement saved his life. An arrow swished past his nose, and he froze, stunned into immobility for an instant. The first quarrel was followed by a rain, ripping through the underbrush. Caught between Christian and the deadly shower, the squire shouted as three arrows pierced his mail in rapid succession. The man's eyes widened with fright and pain, and he turned frantically toward his lord.

But before Christian could do more than reach out, a forth arrow skewered the man's throat, the metal point glistening with blood as it emerged on the other side. Cursing, Christian wheeled his mount and plunged back through the milling and panicked men.

"To me!" he shouted, but when he looked back over his shoulder, none of his men had followed, too caught up in the chaos to heed his words. A moment later, two riders broke away from the confusion and pressed up the hill, charging the defenders' position on the slope.

Fools. Christian drew his sword and turned his horse again, angling up the slope toward where he estimated the flash of motion to have originated. He'd take them on the flank, where they were unprepared—

Hoarse shouts erupted ahead, approaching rapidly. The infantry patrol had joined the fray. A breath later, Christian's charger burst around a tree, and the struggling figures came into view. Brown-clad archers, dead or at sword point; a grizzled knight in Steele green slashing madly at the Greyholm soldiers who surrounded him-and another green-clad figure, slipping lithely through the underbrush away from the fight, a mantle lapping at its heels.

The image of his squire's body bristling with arrows filled his mind with a hot rage, and Christian felt his lips part in a snarl. His hand tightening on his hilt, and he spurred his mount after the slight form. But the figure must have heard his horse's hooves even over the clash of the fight, for Christian caught a flash of a pale face, and then it dove into a thicket too dense for his mount to pass.

Christian pulled his charger to an abrupt halt. He swung from the saddle, dropping the reins and trusting his mount to stay ground-tied as it was trained. Sheathing his sword, he shoved through the thicket after the retreating form.

Ahead of him, the figure ducked and wove nimbly. Even the green mantle seemed unnaturally deft at slipping past the twig that caught and pulled at Christian's clothes. Muttering a prayer against witchcraft, he pressed on.

The thicket ended abruptly, and reaching the edge, the figure broke into a run. By the time Christian had torn himself free, it had doubled its lead. Doggedly, he lowered his head and pounded after.

His prey—that small and slender, Christian decided, meant it could not be more than a boy—seemed to know his advantage, and he chose the most difficult path, crashing between bushes, wriggling through close-growing stands of trees. Christian's bulkier frame could not match the agile speed of the smaller one, and Christian made up ground on every clear stretch only to lose it again as he battled through the next tangle.

His anger spilling over into frustration, Christian surrendered to the futility of trying to chase the boy directly, and when the figure slipped into a patch of brambles, he did not attempt to follow. Instead, he skirted the patch, keeping the youth in sight. The figure emerged at the other side before he had made it a quarter of the way around, but when Christian fell in behind, he discovered that he was closer than before.

His legs were beginning to ache, heavy with the weight of the armor he bore, and the air stabbed his lungs with every breath. How much longer could the boy continue? Surely he must be more tired than Christian was.

Again, the lad plunged into a tangle of brush, and again, Christian ducked around. The boy cast back over his shoulder, turning away from Christian, and a moment later, he slowed to a stumbling jog. He thought he'd lost his pursuit, Christian realized, and he shifted his own strides to muffle the jingle of mail as he tried to close the gap silently.

It wasn't long before the boy's jog became a walk. It seemed to Christian the boy did not choose to slow so much as that his shuffling legs stopped flinging out to catch him; by then, Christian was a scant dozen yards behind, but the youth's ragged pants were so loud that he had no fear of discovery.

Finally, the lad stumbled to a stop, his mantle falling forward over his shoulders as he leaned against a tree, head down and gasping for air. Step by careful step, Christian closed the distance. He kept his eyes fixed on those heaving shoulders, visible on either side of the slender tree, and rested one hand lightly on his hilt. Three yards. Two. One more stride—

Some muted jangling or crackling leaf must have given him away, for an instant before Christian's fingers closed around the boy's arm, the youth's head jerked up and he turned to meet Christian with a wide-eyed stare.

She turned to meet Christian with a wide-eyed stare. For the flared cap was secured by a woman's barbette under her chin, and that soft-featured face could never have belonged to any male. The baroness.

Shock made him slow, and even as his grip began to tighten on her arm, she jerked back, gasping, and hurled away from him, yanking her sleeve from his grasp. An instant later, he was after her again. Her feet drummed frantically on the forest floor; he could hear her breath sobbing in her lungs even above the rough sounds of his own breathing. But she did not slow as she flung herself between the trees.

He saw her goal ahead of them—a wide thicket, snarled and dark. 'Sblood, not again! With a burst of strength, he lunged for her, his shoulder slamming against the small of her back. Her feet flew out from under her, and they hit the ground with a bone-jarring smack.

She lay boneless for a stunned instant, and then she was struggling, her legs thrashing, her hands reaching back to claw him. He fought his way into a crouch, and she wriggled under him, her knee catching him hard in the stomach. With a growl, he threw himself full-length on top of her, trying to immobilize her with his weight.

She went limp.

Panting, she spat leaves from her mouth and glared up at him through wisps of brown hair.

"And so we meet at last, Lady Steele," he said.

"Fitz Grey," she hissed, making the word an oath, her sharp blue eyes narrowing to slits.

Was it the baroness? he wondered abruptly. The ballads spoke of blue eyes, true, but her hair was not flaxen, and though under the dirt and blood her skin was fair enough for any poet, and though her face had a softness about it, her features were stronger than the fashion, her lips lush instead of infant-small, her nose wider than a blade-fine arch, her chin firm and stubborn rather than softly retreating. And she was thin. Not the bird-boned tinyness of some women, but certainly not the shapely, willowy figure that was currently praised.

He dashed away his uncertainties. It had to be her. Jongleurs were notoriously flexible with the truth, and it would be stretching credulity to the breaking point to believe there were two women in Steele green wandering around the forest that day.

And she was attractive. Perhaps not fashionably so-those lips were more suitable for a temptress than a saint-but undeniably, unavoidably attractive all the same. He was preternaturally aware of how close his face was to hers, how their bodies pressed together, the softness of her breasts crushed against his chest as she panted for air. Adrenaline still hammered through his veins, and anger, and they merged with his incipient lust to form one heated welter that tightened his body with anticipation-

She must have read his expression, for she jerked her hand free with a snarl and raked her fingernails across his face, twisting and struggling against him. Cursing, he freed one hand and grabbed his dagger, pressing it to her throat. She froze.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he snapped, shaken at his own reaction. The ludicrousness of those words when he had a knife a hairsbreadth from her skin struck him forcibly, but he shoved the thought away. He wasn't going to kill a woman any more than he would rape her, whatever momentary devil had seized his mind. Disgust at himself colored his words. "Keep still, and I swear upon my honor that no one will be hurt."


	5. Desperation

**Sorry, guys! I got waylaid by the holiday. :)**

The honor of a fitz Grey, Anastasia thought, swallowing against the hysterical giggle that tried to bubble from her throat. That is truly an assurance I can hang my life on!

Again the images of bodies of her father and brother rose in her mind, and the whispered tales of heiresses caught in the power of ruthless men. The hardness against her thigh and the speculating look in the man's eyes made her stomach twist. St. Agnes, please, anything, anything but that. She swallowed, and the edge of the knife brushed the skin of her throat.

The knife!

With a desperate whimper, she threw herself forward, steeled against the bite of the blade, but fitz Grey jerked it away before it even broke the skin. "By the mass! Take care, woman! You nearly cut your own throat."

Anastasia closed her eyes against the black despair that surged up to consume her, dropping her head back listlessly against the leaves. Again a sickening, traitorous laugh built up inside her, and she did not have the strength to keep it from frothing from her lips.

"You are mad," the man said, stunned wonder staining his voice.

Tears pricking her eyes, she said nothing as he shifted on top of her, waiting, knowing, bracing herself for what was bound to come next. She would bear it in silence, and when he was satiated and certain she was too cowed or injured to challenge him—then, she would drive his own dagger through his heart.

She felt him pulling at her skirts, and her eyelids flew open at the abrupt sound of ripping fabric. Fitz Grey's head was tilted down, firm chin set in concentration as he cut a strip of fabric from the hem of her chemise, somehow managing to maintain an appearance of cool self-control and dignity even crouched awkwardly on top of her. He looked up and caught her gaze. "No reason to destroy a good mantle," he said cryptically as he sheathed his knife.

He shifted again, freeing her hands, but before she could react, he had both of her wrists caught in one hand and was winding the strip of linen around them. He had an expression in his gray eyes that made her catch her breath as he tugged them tight. Was it enjoyment? Horror tightened deep in her belly.

Fitz Grey stood, keeping a grip on her forearm. "Come, Anastasia le Steele," he ordered, pulling her up.

Ignoring her broken quiver on the ground, Anastasia got her feet under her, her mind whirling with confusion. What was he going to do to her now? His gaze on her was sharp, and she had the unwelcome realization that he was probably the most handsome man she had ever laid eyes upon. A fringe of copper hair emerged out from under his skullcap and mail coif above aristocratic features and clear gray eyes—he was as beautiful as Satan himself, and Anastasia made a silent prayer against witchcraft.

"I am not she." The words came unbidden, steady with a calmness she did not possess, and even as she spoke them, she seized upon an unlikely plan.

The man just snorted and began striding through the forest, pulling her with him, his grip on her bound hands firm but not cruel. She stumbled along as best she could, her arms extended before her.

"I suppose you shall tell me that you are the Queen, then," he said.

"The baroness's attendant," Anastasia said quickly. "Lady Cynewise."

He shot her a sideways, incredulous look. "And why were you on the battlefield and not your lady, then? Was she cowering in her castle while you faced danger for her?"

Anastasia threw back her head, trying to look disdainful. "I was a decoy. A successful one."

Fitz Grey just shook his head and continued in silence.

She was out of options, out of diversions. She was beaten, and she knew it. Exhaustion sweeping down, Anastasia let hopelessness take her, blanking her mind as she followed him blindly through the woods. Her limbs felt stuffed with straw and impossibly heavy. Every fallen branch, every low bush, every root caught at her feet, and she found herself stumbling and dragging in fitz Grey's grip.

He turned back, his broad jaw tensed with irritation, and her stomach flipped over. But after a single glance at her, his expression softened. He said nothing as he turned away again, but when he set out, he moved with less haste.

Anastasia could not guess what such consideration meant, not could she find the energy to care enough to speculate. It took all her strength to keep one foot moving in front of the other.

When fitz Grey stopped, she nearly ran into him. She blinked, taking in the gray-and-silver-caparisoned charger that stood patiently in front of them, blowing into fitz Grey's hair.

She looked around, and with a start, she recognized the slope upon which she and her men had made their stand. It was bare now, though the leaves were scuffed into piles and stained with blood, and the woods around them were unnaturally silent.

"Do not move, Lady Cynewise," fitz Grey said, pinning her with an icy glare. "You will not like what happens if you force me to chase you down again."

Anastasia nodded, believing him, but her heart still sped up when he released her to untie his mount and swing into the saddle. Her eating knife seemed suddenly to weigh a hundred pounds in its sheath, and a part of her crowed for joy as the man turned his back to swing into the saddle. Even before she had fully formed a plan, she had scuttled half a dozen steps away and the knife was clutched between her bound hands, its point held unwaveringly before her.

Fitz Grey turned in the saddle at the sound of her retreat, and a dozen expressions flickered across his smooth, hard-planed face: surprise, irritation, and a piercing hunger that made her knuckles whiten on the hilt with fury, fear, and a hot sensation deep in her center that she did not care to examine.

"Drop it," the man snapped, his voice cracking through the silent woods like a whip.

"No." How could she sound so calm? she marveled. There was not even an edge of trembling in her voice, but she could feel the treacherous weakness in her legs, and the knife tip dipped once before she got her arms back under control.

The man drew his sword. "I will not ask again."

If only he were on the ground instead of that horse—then she would have plunged the blade hilt-deep into that gray-coated chest! "Stay away from me."

He turned the horse slowly, and it began walking towards her. Under the hammered metal edge of his skullcap, the man's brows lowered, and he shifted his grip on his sword. Anastasia swallowed back bile. He truly meant to kill her—and, perhaps, do even worse first.

"I'll not give you the satisfaction!" she blurted, and with that, she reversed her grip on her knife and stabbed toward her own chest with all of her strength.

Her gunna ripped, but the wide point skittered harmlessly off her mail, and she cried out in chagrin as fitz Grey slammed into her, knocking her to the ground. She clung to her dagger, pinned flat between them, struggling to force the point up against the man's weight as she thrashed against him. She felt a hand close like a vise around her wrist, but with one last burst of strength, she jerked free and stabbed blindly, the blade shuddering as it met resistance.

Fitz Grey snarled a curse, and the last thing she saw before the world exploded was his fist hurling toward her face.


	6. Desire

**Christian's reaction. What does he want to do? More importantly, what will he do?**

**Please keep reviewing. I am changing things as I go in response to people's reactions. :) I've made changes in three chapters now as a result of reviews (one's just a correction I haven't uploaded, but the other two were changes I made before the I uploaded them), so don't be shy about stuff you're enjoying, stuff you're worried about, and stuff that upsets you, too!**

**I know it's taking a while, but I'll be uploading 2x per week now, and the spicy stuff is coming. I have a bunch of other irons in the fire, so keeping this up to date just one of the things I'm juggling. I've got a finished very, very rough draft of this, but I have to make really substantial changes as I go because the original is just a big mess...so yes, I know exactly where it's going, but it takes a LOT of work to get it there.**

**Oh, and the dream that I said this was based on? Yeah, the dream bit pretty much started with the chase and continues across the next couple of chapters! That was the start of the story. In my dream, it was set "a long time ago," vaguely, so that's why this ended up as a medieval. Doesn't really work with swords and wars and marriage alliances set later! It made a lot of work for researching, but it was fun, too.**

Damn. Damn, damn, damn…

Christian's body flooded with urgency, and as the woman's body went limp under him, it took an abrupt and carnal turn, lurching from a fight for survival to the pure white heat of lust.

He didn't move from on top of her for a long moment, not trusting that her appearance of unconsciousness was not another trick, and certainly not trusting the pounding blood that rushed to his head and groin.

By God's nails, Christian was no monster. He might not swoon about the skirts of women in the fashionably chivalric manner, but he had certainly never hit one before. And never had he needed to fight such an urge—the overwhelming desire to ravish what wasn't his, to take what wasn't given. She must be a witch, to do such mad things to his head.

He eased himself to his knees and wished, irrationally, that he hadn't hit her, that she was still trying to scratch his eyes out rather than lying so defenselessly, invitingly, on the detritus of the forest floor.

But she had been determined to kill herself—or him, or both. She hadn't seem to care much which life she took, at that moment. And however inelegant, knocking her unconscious had rather neatly solved that problem, at least for the moment.

The new temptation that it created was entirely of the making of his own flesh, and he would just have to manage it as such. Without violating her or imperiling his soul, whatever the cost. Looking down at her, his mind awash with dark thoughts, he knew his penitence that night would be harsh.

The knife lay on her chest, still grasped lightly in her limp fingers: a jeweled eating blade, far too wide to pierce mail. Not too wide to pierce leather, though, as the bloodstained edge attested—or to go through an eye. He shoved the dagger into his belt with a mental shudder and stood, yanking off his left glove and sucking at the shallow gash in his palm.

"Damn you," he said without feeling, surveying the form sprawled across the leaves. She looked almost saintly lying there, her clear, smooth skin tinged with pink—where it was visible, at least, and wasn't already turning purple. He felt a pang of guilt at that and cursed again.

Her narrow wrists looked even more slender under their linen bonds, and he wondered at the strength she'd show. Her slim body scarcely seemed able to support such defiance. She seemed so innocent, lying there, and he had the urge to smooth the wild wisps of hair from her face and cradle her head in his arms.

He suppressed it with a snort. That little innocent had just tried to kill him and had very nearly succeeded. That thought was tinged with admiration, but he shoved it aside to consider later.

He recovered his sword, sheathed it, and called his horse. Then he looked down at the unconscious woman with a sigh.

"You must make everything difficult, mustn't you, Lady Steele? You just couldn't let yourself be taken from the battlefield to put an end to this this swiftly."

He scooped her from the leaves, taking more care than was absolutely necessary. Her body was soft in his arms, and he had to stifle the involuntary stirring of a response in his groin.

Later, he promised himself.

He slung her across the back of the saddle as gently as possible. It took a good five minutes of maneuvering, which did nothing to squelch the warmth in his loins, but eventually, he got her positioned behind the cantle, her bound arms hooked around his waist as she slumped against his back.

And none too soon, for they had hardly ridden more than a dozen paces when Christian felt her stir, and an instant later, she stiffened.

"If you even think about trying for either one of our knives, you will rue the day you ever heard my name," he warned.

"And you think I don't already?" Her voice was rough, steeped in black bitterness.

"I will not hurt you, my lady," he said, as much to remind his own body as to reassure her.

"It is a fair sight too late for that. You said that once before, my lord—you swore upon your honor, fitz Grey."

"I said if you did not move," he snapped, stung.

"Serpent's tongue!" Her voice rose, and he felt her draw in another breath, but she did not speak again. He would have thought that she had passed out again except for the tension that radiated through every fiber of her body. How she could find the strength to hold herself like that, he did not know. His own limbs dragged with weariness, and he longed for the warm furs of his camp bed.

They emerged upon the scene of the battle before Christian realized they were close, and he shook off a cloud of fatigue as he rode past the perimeter guards to the center of the field, where Sir Johann sat on a stool in front of a blazing campfire. Grinning from ear to ear, he stood and reached up to grasp Christian's arm.

"My lord! May I be the first to congratulate you on a pretty end to this fine mess!" The irrepressible marshal waggled his eyebrows meaningfully at the baroness behind him.

Christian smiled despite himself. "A pretty end, perhaps, but an ugly war. Whom have we lost?"

Sir Johann hesitated, his expression growing grave. "You know about your squires?"

Christian nodded grimly, and Sir Johann gave him the list of other casualties, first those killed, then those injured and unlikely to recover, and finally those with less severe wounds. Christian felt the baroness shift behind him, and he wondered what she was feeling as his marshal listed the casualties. Glee? Exultation? He would be surprised at neither.

When Sir Johann finished, Sir James cleared his throat and spoke from the far side of the fire. "Still, your father will be well pleased," the seneschal said. "Your victory was complete, indeed."

His tone held nothing but respectful blandness, but there was still something about Sir James that made Christian uneasy. It wasn't just that the man belonged to the earl. Christian had led plenty of his father's men, during this campaign and before, and as a boy, he'd known that there was at least one trusted advisor who was judging him and reporting back to his liege. But now Christian was a man grown, and Sir James had never seemed so much like an advisor or a judge as he did a spy.

Christian merely nodded curtly in response. "Have you ordered the men to set up camp?" he asked his marshal.

Sir Johann grinned affably. "I sent most of the army to the village we passed on our way here. The men are camping on the fallow, and the knights and bannerets are in the manor house. Your pages should have the bailiff's chamber ready for you—and your prize."

The woman behind him stiffened. He had to stifle a groan—at Sir Johann's tactless bawdiness, at the even greater difficulty he would now have in winning her trust, and at his own, wholly masculine response to that movement.

"Thank you, Sir Johann," was all he said, though. "Gather the remained troops, and we'll be off."

He could hardly wait to have the woman off his horse and safely barred in the bailiff's chamber—and as for the fact that he would be bedding there, too, well, he wouldn't allow himself to think about that.

Yet.


	7. Captive

**A longer chapter for you! Next one on Monday.**

**R&R!**

Anastasia had to wrap her arms around her captor to keep from being jolted down the horse's rump, her body pressed against his for support as they moved across uneven ground. She considered throwing herself from the horse, but she was bound to the man, and she would only risk breaking her own arms. Her cheekbone throbbed where he had struck her—if she had only been able to stab him in the unprotected face, she might even now be free!

Free to fight more of the Earl of Greyholm's men. To hide behind her castle walls and hope to wait him out, while he ravaged her fields and killed her people….

Was there no way out?

She was far too aware the knives in his belt, mere inches from her bound hands, but she had no chance of overpowering him to use them. Could she choke him, and then run away? Not with her arms so securely under his, and not with the escort that surrounded him.

Finally, Anastasia surrendered the exhaustion that terror had been keeping at bay. With no strength left to resist, she let her head fall forward to rest against the man's broad back as they moved jerkily though the forest, aware only of the sway of the horse beneath her and fitz Grey's strong movements that spoke of contained danger. How much longer did she have to live? A few hours, a few days? She prayed that the end would come swiftly; Greyholm's son would be capable of anything.

Anastasia did not know how long they rode, but the sky was beginning to darken when they reached the highway. Soon, forest gave way to fields, and they started to encounter other people on the road-soldiers bearing Greyholm's colors and a few frightened peasants who scurried into the hedges when they rode into sight. By the time the village appeared around a bend in the road, she was dizzy with fatigue.

The village was Woodmere, she realized as they approached. She had visited many times on the rounds of Astlingsmead's manors. It squatted in the midst of its three great fields, familiar yet strange.

Though the cottages still clustered around the green in a state of suspended collapse, as they always had, now Greyholm's scarlet-clad men patrolled a rough line of wooden spikes across the edge of the village facing the road, and Anastasia could see no signs of the villagers. The road guard bowed and called out a greeting at their approach, but she did not have any attention to spare for that exchange or for the series of orders fitz Grey issued to his men before turning his mount away.

Instead, her mind buzzed with questions that made the sickness in her belly turn to sharp nausea. Where were her people? What had fitz Grey's men done with them?

What was he planning to do with her?

As they approached the manor house, a chill went through her. She remembered the structure as a friendly, welcoming landmark, but now the gray stone hall was cold and forbidding, crouched on the hill above the village like a lion among the rocks.

As soon as fitz Grey pulled to a stop, two pages scurried from the shadowed hall door to take his reins. He lifted her bound arms over his head, unhooking them from around him, and then he swung off his horse with easy strength, without need for the page who respectfully held his stirrup.

A thrill of hope shot through Anastasia's fogged mind. Her hands were still bound, but she was alone of the horse now. If she could just get the reins somehow—

But it was too late. Already, fitz Grey's broad hands were encircling her waist. For the space of a breath, she hung suspended between horseback and ground. Her eyes met his, and she read something in those starling gray depths that she couldn't name but that sent shivers to her core. Not the simple contempt or lust she had expected, but something muddled, mixed, that was almost more frightening.

Then his eyes shuttered over, and he eased her the last foot to the hard-packed turf, turning away in the same movement and striding towards the black entrance of the manor hall.

Her wrist caught in his grip, Anastasia stumbled after, the seized-up muscles of her legs hardly managing to fling themselves under her as she was pulled along. In the smoky interior of the great hall, she caught an impression of many armed men settling down in the timbered aisles on either side of the wide nave. Many men with many pairs of eyes, all of which followed her progress in their lord's wake. Her heart raced as she felt a cold sweat prickle the back of her neck, and the gorge rose in her throat.

"My lord!" one of them called. "Sir Bartholomew wishes to know what's to be done with the prisoners."

"Later," fitz Grey replied curtly. "After I've bathed and had a decent meal in my belly."

"Yes, lord."

Then they were at the stairs at the far end of the hall, and fitz Grey continued up them without slowing. His long legs easily took the steps two at a time, but Anastasia's were shorter, her muscles numb and clumsy. She tripped on the fourth step and went down heavily with a jangle of mail, gasping as she struck her hip against the edge of a tread.

Still holding her wrist in his grasp, fitz Grey turned around. His gray eyes were dark and glowering, and suddenly her courage gave way all at once, and she didn't know whether she wanted to weep or vomit. She curled her legs up under her, closed her eyes against the pricking tears, and swallowed hard, bracing herself for what would come next—what she had known was coming since the moment fitz Grey had sent her sprawling on the forest floor.

But no fists came flying at her body; no hands ripped at her clothes. Instead, the pressure on her arm abruptly ceased. She was scooped up like a child, her face pressed momentarily against the warm, earth-smelling wool of his sleeve.

Her eyes flew open, but fitz Grey's gaze was fixed beyond her, at the top of the stairs he that carried her up so gently, almost tenderly. His handsomeness struck her again, his features firm without being harsh, his solid chin balanced by a wide forehead and an aristocratic nose. She could feel the warmth of his flesh through the layers of armor and cloth that separated them, it occurred to her for the first time that fitz Grey, whatever else he might be, was truly a man of flesh and blood.

Perhaps he wasn't a devil in human form. Perhaps he was just a man, however comely. And if he turned away from right, it would be a man's evil and a man's malice she faced, no more, and however powerful that corruption might be, there was a chance that it was not untainted by purer motives.

But just as a faint hope was beginning to return, fitz Grey reached the top of the stairs and kicked open the door there, revealing the bailiff's bedchamber inside. Under any other circumstances, the room would have seemed airy, even cheerful, but now the hulking massiveness of the bed seemed to fill the space, crowding out light and breath.

No! Panic surged up her throat, choking her. She thrashed against her captor's arms, her bound wrists catching him in the nose as she twisted in his arms. But the arms that held her only tightened like metal bands.

"Easy, now!" he murmured as if he were calming a skittish horse.

It was useless. Anastasia's heart wrenched. Ceasing her efforts all at once, she went limp in his arms. Fitz Grey crossed to the bed and set her gently upon it, looking assessingly at her with his cold eyes.

Anastasia jerked away the second he released her. Scrambling backwards across the bed, she wedged herself in the corner between the high headboard and the wall, hugging her legs to her chest with her still-bound wrists. Strong, she told herself as she fought back hysteria. I am a le Steele, and I will be strong.

When fitz Grey drew his knife, she could not stifle her gasp. But he merely reached out and took her shaking wrists with his free hand, neatly slicing the strips of linen that tied them together. Anastasia hissed involuntarily as blood rushed back into her hands and looked up into his clear gaze.

Free! The thought was a saving breath of air. But free for what? Anastasia let her gaze slide sideways, and for the first time, she took in the rest of the room. A small table with two stools, a steaming half-cask of water beside it. Wall hangings, embroidered with stiff agricultural figures, a tiny reliquary, and four rushlights on shelves around the perimeter of the room. The door they had entered, still open but the manor entrance guarded by half of fitz Grey's knights. And a window, shutters open to the evening breeze.

The window. She pictured the drop, a good three spear-lengths onto packed dirt. Death or crippling were almost assured. But she had already tried a clean death once to avoid a worse fate; she could do it again. Whispers of stories from the last Crusades echoed in her mind, of women on both sides raped until they died, their broken bodies bleeding out inside their own skins. Anything but that.

She drew her legs underneath her as fitz Grey turned away to shut the door, exhausted muscles protesting the coiled tension she placed them under. He moved one step from the bed, then two, three—

She lunged off the bed as his hand touched the door and flung herself at the window. Her hip fetched up against the sill, arresting her motion. Putting her hands against the rough limestone of the outer wall, she braced to push herself through.

But a rough hand grabbed the back of her gunna and hauled against her efforts. She clawed at the window frame, her breath sobbing in her throat, but to no avail. With a yank, fitz Grey wrenched her free, and she tumbled back into the room.

"'Sblood, woman! You are mad!" the man spat, pulling her up and pinning her against the wall with his broad body.

Panting with exertion, she summoned the shreds of her courage and glared back. She had lost her cap, and now her braids tumbled free down the front of her gunna. But she ignored them.

"Not mad," she returned. "Only far too able to foresee my fate."

An indecipherable expression on his hard-planed face, fitz Grey shook his head and stepped back. With space between them again, she was aware of how painfully her hands still tingled. She chafed them surreptitiously under the cover of her wide sleeves.

"A veritable sibyl, that you can foresee what I have yet to determine." He pulled off his iron skullcap and shoved back the mail coif beneath, which slithered jingling to lie against his back, revealing more of his broad jaw. "That is a decision for another time, though. Now, I wish to get clean before I speak with my knights, and this foolishness is giving the water time to cool." He treated her with a quelling look. "Do not go near the window unless you wish to be tied up again."

Mutely, Anastasia backed farther into the corner, away from both him and the window. With a nod of satisfaction, fitz Grey went over to face her across the steaming half-cask of water. He stripped off his glove—he was only wearing one, she realized—and unbuckled his sword belt, laying it down carefully before he shrugged out of his surcoat in one fluid movement.

Then he paused. For one long moment, he just stared at Anastasia, his face unreadable, before sighing and tossing his clothes onto a stool.

"Clean yourself first, my lady," he said gruffly. "I'll not leave you alone, so you will have to do it with me or a guard here, and I trust myself more than my men." Before she had a chance to analyze that, he added, "Get started now, as I'd like the water to still be hot when it is my turn."

"Thank you," she said a bit numbly.

He grabbed the other stool and stepped away from the half cask, his mail hauberk jangling without the muffling weight of the surcoat over it, and Anastasia warily circled around him to the tub. Taking his sword belt and both their daggers with him, he set the stool under the window and sat on it, leaning against the sill.

Anastasia gripped the neckline of her gunna in both hands, her blood thrumming through her veins.

"Well?" the man asked impatiently.

"Turn your back," she managed. "Please. Sir knight."

"As you wish. Lady Cynewise." Fitz Grey scooted the stool away from the wall and swiveled around so that he was looking out of the window she had so nearly thrown herself from.

Anastasia suppressed a small tremor of fear. Perhaps it was not so wise to pretend to be one of her own ladies, for without her rank, she would have little claim to respect or protection. But if he decided to believe her, she would also have little value as a tool, and that was the greatest danger. Wasn't it?

"Thank you," she said. She waited for a moment to see if he was planning to catch her unawares, but he showed no signs of stirring.

What would he do if I refuse to cooperate?she wondered. She considered his form, only the slightest outline of his strong face visible as he kept his gaze politely fixed out the window. Probably strip me and bathe me himself, she decided, taking care not to examine the rush of emotions that came with that thought.

She pulled off the bandolier that still held the shattered remains of her quiver and stripped off her heavy necklace and the brooch that kept her mantle in place. She tugged off her gloves and the heavy rings beneath and unfastened her belt, dropping everything in a pile at her feet.

Keeping her eyes fixed on fitz Grey's broad back, she pulled off her gunna, then eased the long hauberk over her head, stifling curses as the links caught at her hair. Finally, she was free of it, and the padded wool gambeson followed quickly.

After that, it took only moments before kirtle and chemise, shoes and stockings followed the rest. They were all filthy, damp with mud and sweat and even traces of blood from the dozens of scratches from briers that had gone through her stocking during her flight or caught her unprotected neck and face.

"So how exactly did you come to be chosen to masquerade for the baroness, Lady Cynewise?" fitz Grey asked without preamble. His voice was soft, almost gentle, but Anastasia's nerves thrummed with it.

"My lady asked for one of us to volunteer. And I did." Anastasia tried to pour all her sincerity into those words, but she could not tell what effect they had.

"It seems cowardly to me that your lady would send you into danger while keeping herself safe," he mused.

Anastasia frowned and began to scrub her arms and chest with the cake of soap that lay waiting on the table. It burned in the scratches on her neck, but the sweat was quickly washes away. "If you are an honorable man, I am in no danger. My lady feared that there might be just such an attempt upon her that occurred, and so she thought that discretion was wise."

"And your father allowed this? And your brothers? They must love Lady Steele greatly, to risk their own daughter and sister."

Those words stung more than the soap in her scratches, old, festering wounds unwrapped and prodded, and for a moment, she forgot her fear in a wash of anger. "I have no family. Your father murdered all that I had left after my mother died. I had hoped to be revenged on the house of fitz Grey this day, but the arrow meant for your throat found another's."

Fitz Grey's head snapped around at those words, and Anastasia's hands were scant protection from his burning gaze.

"My squire," fitz Grey said slowly. "You killed young Giles."

"And the knight of the blue lion and two of your horse sergeants," Anastasia said recklessly. "Astlingmead has never done you any harm, yet you invade our lands, trample our crops, slaughter our people. They deserved no mercy, none of them. Shall you now kill me for defending my land? Strike me down here, a woman unarmed?"

Fitz Grey stood up, closing the distance between them in three slow steps. Anastasia's heart skittered out of control, her arms tightening convulsively around her body. She was defenseless, utterly defenseless. In her moment of fury, she had hoped to provoke him into killing her on the spot, saving her from a worse fate, but now she feared that she had made a terribly miscalculation.

The man took her chin in his hard fingers, tilting it up so that she looked at him squarely, and she tried not to flinch.

His words were cruel. "No. You have shown too much willingness. Therefore, my sentence is life. If I were a hard man, I would give you to the common soldiers. I have told you that I am a true knight. They make no such claims."

His body was close, too close to her naked one, his face mere inches from her own. It took all her strength to keep from allowing a betraying tremor of fear to come over her limbs.

Abruptly, his hand dropped, and he stepped away, throwing upon the great chest against the wall and flinging a clean chemise from it at her. She clutched it awkwardly against her breasts.

"Dress yourself," he said harshly. "I will bathe. Turn aside or not, as you choose, but do not go near the window or the door, or it will go poorly for you."

Anastasia took the garment the corner of the room farthest from the bed and dressed quickly, facing the wall. She hoped that Christian was not watching, but she imagined that she could feel his gaze crawling across her skin_. _

Not that he has not seen most of me already_,_ she thought. He had not taken then, as he could have. As he could now, if he had a mind to it.

She stood, barefoot and wearing nothing but the thin linen chemise, wishing she had sturdier clothes, more layers to place between herself and the earl's son. But to delve into the chest for more clothes would require that she turn away from the wall, and the splashes from the tub told her that she would see far more than she was ready for if she turned around.

The sounds of washing ceased, and there was a faint rustling of cloth. "Perhaps you can be forgiven for the squire Giles, though he was a good man and true. It is war, after all."

"An unprovoked war, my lord!" she returned, against her best judgment. "My lord the Earl of Rothbourne might be a doddering old fool, but has done nothing to cause your animosity, nor have the le Steeles insulted you, and yet your father campaigns again Rothbourne and send you onto the field against me."

Fitz Grey's reply was cold. "My father believes that a greater might creates the right. I am his son and his vassal, and may not contradict him."

Anastasia did not bother to hide her outrage. "You serve a man who thumbs his nose at God and king, at laws both mortal and sacred!"

"I am faithful to my liege. This is my greatest duty. Do not doubt my loyalties, Lady Cynewise. You hardly can speak of honor-you who claim another woman's name. Your speech and manner proclaim you to be a lady of very high birth, and yet you mock me with your lies." She heard him stride across the floor. His hands seized her shoulders roughly as he spun her away from the wall to face him.

He wore only trewes and a shirt, and Anastasia could see the muscles of his arms moving under the thin linen as he loomed over her, pressing her into the corner. She felt suddenly dwarfed by his strength and anger.

"Until you confess to your true identity, you have no place to speak of honor," he grated. "And no position from which to insult mine."

"I am Lady Cynewise," she insisted, tilting her chin back in defiance.

Christian just snorted with contempt and turned away with a dismissive, shrugging motion of his shoulders.

There was a scratch on the door. Catching Anastasia's arm in his hard grip, Christian went to open it.

Anastasia started at the young woman who stood there—Catherine, the bailiff's youngest daughter. The young woman looked no less surprised.

"My lady!" the damsel burst out, her eyes going wide.

"Attend to your baroness," Christian said curtly.

"Yes, my lord," Catherine said, bobbing a curtsy even as Anastasia frantically shook her head.

Anastasia's heart felt like it had just been hollowed out. That was it. Her flimsy deception was over.

Christian just smiled down at her in her despair. She was too numb to even manage to stir up anger against him.

"Lady Steele is in danger of losing her eternal soul through self-harm, and so on pain of your death, she not to be let near the window, and her food shall be cut outside the room-in fact, give me your knife before you enter," he directed.

"Yes, my lord," the bailiff's daughter said, handing over her eating knife as she stepped through the door.

Fitz Grey shut the door again and released Anastasia, turning away to complete his dressing. Catherine went to the clothes press against the wall, opening the lid and digging through it until she came up with a long blue kirtle.

"Here, my lady," she said, offering it to Anastasia. "My mother's summer kirtle. We can lace it tightly."

Anastasia swallowed an outburst against the girl. She couldn't have known what she had done. Instead, she simply said, "Thank you, Lady Catherine," and allowed herself to be dressed like a doll, then say obediently on the stool to allow the damsel to loosen her long brown braids to brush and rearrange her hair.

Fitz Grey pulled on a clean surcoat and soft shoes, pausing at the door with his cap in his hand. Anastasia steadfastly refused to look at him.

"Have heart, Lady Steele," he said softly. "You will not come to harm in my power."

Lady Catherine paused in her brushing, looking from one to the other, but Anastasia did not raise her eyes from the floor or acknowledge his words in any way. After several moments of silence, he left.

A heavy blanket of exhaustion fell over Anastasia despite her gnawing fear. How long had it been since she had slept undisturbed through the night? The day that she had heard that Greyholm was marching against Rothbourne, her world had been turned into chaos. Anastasia rubbed her temples wearily as Lady Catherine braided her hair.

"I am sorry to see that you were taken, my lady," Catherine said quietly.

"So am I," Anastasia said. "Your family and the rest of the villagers—where are they?"

"My father and brothers are still with your men, as far as I know, my lady," Catherine said. "I was taken with my sister as we tried to ride for the castle with the miller's daughter. Many of the peasants who were not called to join the army are in the barn, but others are still hiding in the fields and forest."

"How have the Greyholm men dealt with you?" Anastasia asked. "Have you had sufficient food? Water? Have you suffered insults at their hands?"

"Thus far, we have largely been treated with dignity and Christian charity," Catherine said. "However, it has been made clear to us that our condition is valued as it reflects our worth as hostages, and that our future treatment will be tied to that position." She looked at Anastasia earnestly. "I am your loyal vassal, my lady, but please do not demand anything of me that would further threaten the welfare of my family."

The threats of reprisal should Anastasia succeed in killing herself took on a new, dark meaning. Even that avenue of escape had become but another trap—if not for her, than for her people.

As Catherine tied off the ends of Anastasia's braids, the guard on the other side of the door let in a servant entered with supper. The roast was already cut into small portions upon the trencher, served with a loaf of fine white bread and a flagon of good red wine. Anastasia took the wine but refused her portion of the food.

Lady Catherine looked at her with naked concern on her face. "My lady, you must eat if you are to keep up your strength."

"I have no need for strength anymore," Anastasia said. "What will the Greyholm creature do if I refuse? Force food down my throat? If he does, I shall gag myself, and throw it all up again."

But the doubt in Lady Catherine's face was echoed in Anastasia's heart.

Was there any resistance that she could offer her conqueror? She was not sure, but she must try.


	8. Feast

**I know this is super-short. A longer chapter is coming before Thursday. Preparing taxes threw a wrench in the works, but I want to get something up today!**

With a brief nod to the guard, Christian paused outside the door to the bailiff's chamber. His appearance was immediately greeted by tumult below, for the two bedchambers on the upper floor were reached by a gallery overlooking the great hall, but he ignored the importunities of his men as he sought to gather his wits.

Foolish, reckless woman. She could have been killed, blundering through the forest. If Sir Giles had only performed the task he had been so amply paid to do, and if she had only gone quietly with him, then half the bloodshed could have been averted. He had believed that once he had the baroness in his grasp, her men would be forced to parlay—and, if he had any skill at negotiations at all, to surrender on his terms.

She was in his power now, however, but he was beginning to fear that her men would not react with the docility that he had hoped. Not without her cooperation. This baroness was no mere pawn in a set-piece, as he had assumed that the earl's young ward would be. She had been far more than a symbol above the battlefield. He had seen with his own eyes how she had fought, with her own hands when necessary, and she suspected that she was equally intimately involved in the plans before the battle.

He had let the minstrel stories lead him astray. Lady Steele was no frail bower maiden. She had not the golden hair or the fluting voice of the ballads in her honor, and neither did she have the delicate sensibilities or retiring modesty of the heiress of song.

Though she conformed to few of the ideals of the ballads, with her husky voice, dark hair, and angular body, she had every bit as much power of attraction as the minstrels credited her. The image of her naked body flashed inevitably into his mind. 'Swounds, she was desirable indeed, though peculiarly so—she had the small, high breasts that were in fashion, but with a taut belly rather than the soft, full mound that most men desired. On her, though, the slenderness did not appear to be the consequence of wasting but of health, even strength.

And that was exactly it. Her attractiveness was rooted in her vitality and force of will, not retiring, fragile femininity. That made her fascinating. And dangerous.

Now he had to decide what to do with her. A plan was forming in his mind—a mad plan, yet one that might forge a lasting peace and achieve every objective his father might possibly desire.

His only fear was that too much of its appeal came from the basest and most carnal motives….

Christian took a deep breath and descended the stairs. He crossed to the head of the high table and stood silently, waiting for his men's flow of questions to subside before raising his hand for silence. The last few murmurs died away as he spoke.

"You all acquitted yourselves with great honor in today's battle. Your bravery was matched only by your judgment and levelheadedness. Nevertheless, few wars are without casualty, and today's engagement was no exception. Four knights, eight squires, and seven sergeants were either killed outright or not expected to survive, along with some sixty common soldiers."

He nodded to Sir Johann, who stood and recited the list of casualties. There were several frowns among his men, but they were expressions of gravity and concern rather than dissatisfaction at his leadership.

When Sir Johann finished and resumed his seat, Christian spoke again.

"Our victory upon the field was nearly complete. Most importantly of all, we captured the baroness shortly after the battle, and she is in our power now. Tomorrow, we will send heralds to Astlingmead Castle to inform them of our victory and demand their surrender. As we killed or captured most of the baroness' force upon the field, the castle should be able to offer only a token resistance. However, I plan neither to besiege nor to assault it if such measures are not necessary."

"And what do you intend to do, to insure that they aren't?" Sir James' voice next to him was quiet but cutting.

But Christian had no desire to share his intentions with his father's man. He only smiled grimly and said, "You shall see."

Turning to the hall, Christian raised a flagon of wine. "We have fought well, so let us now feast!"

The men cheered, and upon that signal, a line of kitchen drudges entered, bearing great platters of roast pig, oxen, and piles of bread. Christian sat back upon his chair, surveying his men with satisfaction.

They had prevailed upon one battlefield today. And after supper, he would claim victory upon another.


	9. Terms of Peace

Christian mounted the stairs, leaving the men carousing below. Under normal circumstances, he would be attended by his personal squires, the young Giles and the grizzled Goubert. But the first was dead, struck down by the baroness, and he had just visited the second in the butlery, which had been turned into a sickroom for the knights, squires, and sergeants who bore wounds too grave to permit them to join the others in the hall. If his wounds did not become infected, Goubert was likely to recover, and Christian had lit a candle for both him and Giles and recited three Paternosters for them in the village church for him before returning to the manor house.

When Lady Steele had flaunted her killing of squire Giles in his face, he had almost lost control, possessed by an urge to wipe the sneer from her lips. But even at that moment, he was not sure whether he had wanted to strike her or to take that defiant mouth in his own and make it respond with all the need and fury that drummed in his veins.

Even now he wanted her—to complete his conquest of her, even to punish her, but also because she was like no other woman he had ever encountered, uniquely fascinating and desirable.

He muttered a curse against his carnal weakness. The decision he was about to make had to be based on a sounder foundation than a momentary lust.

And it was. He knew it was. But, oh, did that lust make it that much more tantalizing….

Christian nodded to the guard and opened the bailiff's chamber door. The baroness looked up from her seat on the bed. For an instant, she looked thin, tired, and painfully vulnerable, her soft face etched with lines of tension and her blue eyes dark with sorrow.

But the moment she saw him, all signs of weakness flowed from her face, replaced by the haughty defiance he found both irritating and compelling. Cool and indestructible, she transcended her desperate circumstances and looked down at him with a regal contempt. Christian frowned, thinking that his job might be harder than he had thought.

"You are dismissed, Lady Catherine," he said to her attendant. "The guard will take you to the barn and ensure that you are not molested."

Lady Catherine hesitated in the doorway. "My lady the baroness did not find herself hungry," she said, the words half-apology, though whether to him or to her mistress, he couldn't tell.

"Indeed," he said, frowning at the wood trencher upon the chest, her untouched supper upon it.

Lady Catherine left.

Christian crossed slowly to the stool and sat on it, facing Lady Steele squarely. Her expression did not change-if anything, it grew harder.

"Eat, my lady. I do not poison my guests," he ordered.

"Or your prisoners?" she returned.

"You may name yourself what you will, Lady Steele," he said.

She did not attempt to reject the name he gave her, but her lips drew into a hard line. "As I told Lady Catherine, I am not hungry."

Christian's exasperation was tempered by a contrary admiration. At first, she had tried to defeat him on the battlefield, then to kill him in an ambush. When both those ventures failed, she attempted to stab him with her eating knife and then to kill herself when there was no other escape. Did she now mean to use starvation to free herself from his control?

But he was not without inducements. "Well, then, I certainly pray your people whom we are keeping in the manor's great barn are not hungry, either, for if you do not touch your food, they will eat none."

The baroness stared at him, impotent fury written on her face. "You would not!"

"I would and I will," he said coldly, meaning every word. "Test me if you dare. I will take you down at every meal to hear their empty bellies rumble. I doubt that it will be long before you eat. I should hope that you love your people too much to starve them."

She sat, immovable and silent, for a long moment, but he met her gaze unflinching. Finally, she gave a tiny movement of she shoulders, something between a shudder and a shrug, and Christian knew it was an admission of defeat.

He took the wood trencher from the chest and thrust it at her, and she took it onto her lap without a word. For a second, Christian thought that he could see her pulse fluttering in her neck, but then she shifted minutely and the vision was gone, and he could not decide whether he had merely imagined it. She picked up the smallest piece of roast and brought it to her lips, her eyes never leaving his, and chewed it slowly before swallowing.

He sat back with satisfaction.

"Your little ambush cost the lives of several good men, Lady Steele," Christian began, his voice deliberately cold. "Yet if changed nothing in the end. Soon, my father will capture Rothbourne itself, for the north is falling as quickly as Astlingmead has here in the south."

The woman raised her chin, glaring at him. "My people will not give up simply because you have captured me. They will fight all the harder to rescue their lady from your grasp."

"Perhaps," Christian said. "Or perhaps not. I have not been called to fight by my father without greater incentive than mere filial loyalty."

"You were promised Astlingmead itself," the baroness said flatly, her eyes glittering with anger that she did not even seem to try to hide.

"Indeed. Even when vassal's daughter has her inheritance recognized by the king, it rarely takes much persuasion for another to be recognized in her place."

He could tell from her expression of repressed fury that the baroness knew his words to be true. An heiress was rare, and she was always in great danger of kidnapping or disinheritance, unless she was safely married off to a man with enough power to protect her interests….

"There is another way," he said. "One with less bloodshed. A way that allows you to keep your title and all its honors."

All at once, the color drained from Lady Steele's face as realization dawned in her eyes. "No," she whispered, a morsel of meat dropping nervelessly from her fingers. "Never."

Her virulent horror stung him. "My lady, I do not have to ask for your hand. There are many priests who would perform a ceremony and for but a little silver would hear the woman's 'yes' even as she screams 'no.'"

"Then it will be a farce of a marriage, a rape in all but name," she spat.

"I doubt that I will have to resort to such measures," he returned.

"Why you are so sure that I shall give my consent?" she demanded. "Do you threaten my life? In your grasp, I value it so little that you cannot frighten me with specters of death. Will you take my title? I would not keep it, if you are the one to usurp my father's lands. Will you take from me my virtue? Then it will be your shame and not mine."

"I will force no woman," Christian said bluntly.

"If she is not your wife." It was both a question and a statement, full of unconcealed disgust that provoked him further.

"If she agrees to be my wife, she agrees to have me, and that I may have her." And how he wanted to have her, right there, thrown back into the coverlets as he drove into her, again and again….

Something of his hunger must have been transmitted in his gaze, for a slow flush burned in Lady Steele's cheeks.

"No, my lady, I have no need to force you," he said. "I will use the same inducement as I did to make you eat. If you do not wed me, your people will suffer, and I will keep you alive to see their grief. The prisoners will not be fed, and I must win your castle by siege or by storm. All your villages and fields will be destroyed in the fighting, and in such battles, not even women and children are fully spared."

Denial, fear, and revulsion flickered across her face. Christian forged ahead, determined to make her face the truth. "The few able-bodied men you can still muster will be slaughtered, and there will be no one but women and boys to bring in what harvest survives, and no one to plow and sow next spring."

"No," she said, shaking her head.

Christian pressed on. "You will go to sleep each night with the cries of orphans in your ears, living in the castle as a servant to see what you have wrought through your stubbornness."

"No," she repeated. She was trembling visibly now, but still she stood firm against his onslaught. Christian weighed his words to wrench away the last of her illusions.

"I know you hate me for what I have done. Do you hate your people, too? Would you see innocents die senselessly to feed your pride? I pray you are a better woman than that. You have lost already. Surrender."

Lady Steele shuddered convulsively, her half-eaten meal sliding to the floor as she stumbled to her feet. "I cannot."

She spun away from him, poised on the balls of her feet as if to flee. But there was nowhere for her to go. She started toward the door then stopped, frozen in the center of the room.

Christian stood and closed the distance between them. She gave ground slowly, backing up toward the wall until she fetched up against it. He was standing so close to her that the front of her kirtle brushed against his legs, her breasts scant inches from his chest. He put his arms on either side of her body, barring her in.

She was out of room. Christian needed her to understand that she was out of options, as well.

"It is the best for your people, Anastasia le Steele. It is the best for you, as well," he said sternly.

"I would rather die," she retorted, her chin rising again in that defiant way.

Christian had no doubt that she meant it. But why such vehemence? "I had not thought my features nor my manners so repulsive, my lady, that you should regard the prospect with such horror."

"You are a Greyholm," she said bleakly. "You have invaded my home without provocation and stolen my birthright. You father murdered mine, and the supposed accident that claimed by brother's life was almost certainly devised by him, as well. Now you want me to give myself to you, to legitimize your illegitimate claim upon my family's lands. If I were to accede, how long after the wedding would I survive? A night? A week? A month? Then I, too, will have an accident. No. I will not let you have this, too."

"We Greyholms had nothing to do with your brother's death, and your father's was a true accident," Christian said.

"Were you there, my lord?" Lady Steele asked. "Did you see your father's lance drive through the slits of my father's helm?"

"No," Christian admitted. "I was not."

She laughed, a peculiarly melodious sound despite the bitterness in it. "Then you may be just a fool and not a liar."

He raised one hand, brushing his knuckles across her soft, pale cheek. She flinched, her eyes going wide and her lips parting slightly as her breathing rate increased.

Christian softened his voice. "Whatever you believe of my father, believe this of me: my wife will be under my protection even as she is under my authority, both of which are far from trivial."

"Why do you want me so fiercely?" she whispered. Her eyes were luminous, shining with the unnatural brightness of unshed tears. "I saw it in your eyes when you first brought me down in the woods—I thought that certainly, you would attack me then. You didn't, yet you still want the same thing, but now you dress it up in terms of a surrender, a truce, a marriage. But the truth is that you just want me, however you can assuage your guilty conscience into believing that your desire is just. Why?"

The words struck true—too true. But Christian would not admit that to her. Not now, and perhaps not ever. "Do not flatter yourself," he said.

And yet there she was, only inches away, so brave and so vulnerable, reckless and desirable, and for once, he could not stop himself. He caught the nape of her neck in his hand, and even as she gasped in alarm, he covered her mouth with his.

For an instant, her entire body went stiff with outrage, but then she made a small noise against his lips and kissed him back, hard, her body pressed against his as her hands fisted in his surcoat. Her mouth was sweet and hot, and he took it as he wanted to take her, possessing it thoroughly. Hot need lanced through him, down into his groin—

And she shoved him away with a cry, twisting out of his arms.

"You devil!" she said. Her braids were mussed, her eyes wide and flashing. "Stay away from me."

"Perhaps you do not fear marriage because you hate me so much," Christian said. "Perhaps it is because you are afraid that you won't hate me at all."

"Bring back my father," Lady Steele said. "Bring back my brother, and then I might not hate you."

"As you well know, that is beyond mortal powers," Christian said.

"Then wooing me is fruitless, for affection is beyond mine."

"I don't ask for your love," Christian said. "I only ask for your hand. Will you give it?"

Her face twisted, and she spoke the words as if they hurt her. "Yes. I must. For my people, I must."

Christian's heart gave a painful contraction. She had agreed, but with such horror and reluctance. Though he could not have hoped for more, her unwillingness still burned him. Nonetheless, she would be his, irrevocably his, for he knew that her promise was as binding to her as any sacrament. He reached for her, whether to comfort or embrace her he did not know, but he saw her shudder and automatically recoil from him, so he aborted the motion mid-gesture.

"Will you give me your parole? Your oath that you will not try to harm yourself?" He forced his tone to be cool.

"You have my word," the baroness replied. The tremble in her voice was so slight that he almost missed it, and it made his heart clench. "I will do myself no harm. But, my lord, if you have any mercy, do not make me eat any more tonight. I could not."

"No, my lady," he agreed softly. "You may eat tomorrow. Go to sleep. My army will not march to attack your castle in tomorrow. Instead, we will be wed." He left, shutting the door quietly behind him.

Christian stood outside the door for several seconds, trying to order his thoughts. 'Sblood! Being around her muddles me more than wine.He still could feel her presence burning through the thin door that separated them, and the phantom image of her anguished face haunted his mind. Her revulsion had hit him like a blow, but it did nothing to make him want her any less. And her humiliation, which in his anger he had desired, had only roused a protectiveness that he had not anticipated.

"My lord?" One of the guards at the door was looking at him questioningly.

Christian came to himself with a start. "Fetch a quill and parchment," he ordered.

He would send a messenger that night to his father's camp, for he needed the permission of his liege to be wed.


End file.
